Hitters who have excelled have been Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil, Gavin
Cecchini, Dominic Smith, Travis Taijeron, Wuilmer Becerra, Eudor Garcia,Johnny Monell, and Matt Reynolds.A few have had prolonged slumps along the
way, but been brilliant at other times.

Up-and-comers doing almost
as well include Amed Rosario and Luis
Guillorme, Rob Whelan, and Rainy Lara.

That gets me to 20. I
could easily add some more (like Kelly
Secrest and injured Brandon Nimmo, and Jonathan Johnson is ready to bump into
the top 20), but I will stop there.

12
comments:

Hmmn...there's a catcher in AAA suitable for a backup role hitting .370 and one in the majors hitting around .170. The one in AAA is a lefty which would allow you to start against particularly tough righties to give the starting catcher a break.

Oh, who are we kidding? He got a shot to get splinters from sitting on the bench once before and was declared a failure after a whopping 16 ABs. Meanwhile, Anthony Recker collects a paycheck for inexplicable reasons.

Campbell has a .440 average in VegasCeciliani has a .336Lets have some common sense when adding Vegas stats to a conversation. Campbell proved it's easier to hit .440 when playing everyday in Vegas than it is to hit .230 coming off the bench in Citi.Now a stat to talk about in Vegas is a sub 2 ERA for Matz.

Richard, assume your "AAA averages" point may be DIRECTED AT Reese's Monell point. It does seem AAA stats really overinflate the appearance of a guys ability.

However,Monell also really tore it up this spring, so he may have had a case of nerves. Happens - when Duda first came up, wasn't he something like 1-32? And Monell only K'd 4 times in his stint here - bad luck?

Doubt Recker hits .270, much less .370, in AAA.

Recker had his 2 homer game...and an Awful 1 RBI and about .125 in all others.

I would choose the backup catcher based off of things that don't show up in the box scores. How does he call a game. Are the starters comfortable pitching to him.I think Plawecki goes back to AAA or to the DL tonight. I don't think they're going with 3 catchers.I'm not against Monell but just his bat isn't a case that is going to convince me. If he can't call a game and pitchers don't like him behind the plate then he needs to develop that part of his game also. The amount of offense lost between a .250 hitting catcher vs. a .200 hitting catcher isn't very much when they're only getting 6 ABs a week. They're calling a game per week. That's about 200 pitches. Much more important than the 6 abs.

I'm having a hard time concentrating on a position (backup catcher) that was made for someone to sit on the bench. As Chris Soto has pointed out, whoever is the chosen #2 catcher for the night is not coming off the bench to pinch hit. He must remain on the bench in case there is an injury to the catcher in the game.

It amazes me how much time is spent on this subject. My guess is most of you want Travis d'Arnaud in the game for the majority of the season. That means SOMEBODY else will be on the bench spitting out seed shells.

I think that Kevin Plawecki has hurt his immediate trade value because of the lack of BA and dizziness. A return to AAA where he can, first, pile on, and secondly, deal with his health problems, is probably the best decision here.

Regarding Monell and Recker, hitting .370 in the PCL doesn't translate to anything in the major leagues. I

Yes Mack the Monell trade was a joke.I agree with your post 100%. Pitchers loving Recker is much more important than the offense that will be gained with Monell. The offense would amount to 1 hit per month at best because of the lack of at bats.

Does anyone know about a "mystery man" who seemingly has no background named Casey Delgado? He's pitched two excellent starts for Savannah, but when I looked up his history on MILB.com, all it says is that he's 25 (old for Savannah) and has no other MnL experience.Did he suddenly parachute from a Flying Saucer?